


Beautiful silence.

by Randomness_is_my_order



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Beautiful, Character Death, Gen, Pain, Silence, Smile
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-19
Updated: 2021-01-19
Packaged: 2021-03-18 01:34:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28858920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Randomness_is_my_order/pseuds/Randomness_is_my_order
Summary: A take from Snape's perspective of a very different Harry who is constantly subjected to pain but who bears it without a sound. Quite literally.
Kudos: 7





	Beautiful silence.

_'Even death can be a beauty to behold,_

_When life looks only an ugly reflection.'_

Snape had known. He knew since the child was only 10 that Harry was a beautiful child. He wasn't what the wizarding world expected their saviour to be. What Snape expected the boy-who-lived to be. 

A year before Harry would first come to Hogwarts, Snape had come to know that Harry wasn't living with some rich foster parents, growing up to be an arrogant brat, but with the Dursleys, with Petunia who despised everything that had to do with magic. 

Snape had rushed to number 4 Privet Drive that afternoon, to find for himself the condition Harry was in. He still believed that he would be taken care of, if not with extreme love. 

_He was proven wrong._

Yes, Harry was a beautiful child, but he was also a servant in that house. He was small, incredibly so for a kid his age. Snape saw as he cooked the lunch in the kitchen, delicious meal it was. Snape saw as Harry served the meal, stood by the table, eyes on the lamp by the television set. He didn't eat lunch. No, he just waited till his relatives ate and chatted and ignored his existence until the time came when he was required to clean the table up. 

He didn't say a word. He did what was told silently, he had this smile on his face. A sad curve. Snape never thought possible for a smile to ever convey such deep sorrow. But he did, that day. Harry was in pain. And he smiled through it all. 

Snape saw as Harry cleaned the plates, put them back, cleaned the whole house, dusting, sweeping, then he came out in the yard, did some work there, all on an empty stomach. 

He still didn't say a word. Snape thought it was because there wasn't anybody Harry could talk to. Snape wanted to go, to comfort Harry, to help him, but he knew he couldn't do much. He'd have to wait. Tell Dumbledore. He wasn't Harry's magical guardian afterall. 

So Snape watched as Harry did the same routine for dinner as the one for lunch, except he got some leftovers to eat this time. And Snapd raged silently, when Harry was shoved inside a cupboard under the stairs. The doors were locked and Snape knew then and there that Harry didn't have a room to call his own. 

It was clear, really. 

_Harry was abused._

Snape had confronted Dumbledore about this and was left feeling even more angrier than he already had. He'd been told that Harry was safe there than anywhere else. That he must've exaggerated the level of abuse and hostility. 

When Snape had refused to belief such bullshit reasoning, Dumbledore had told him. He'd told him the prophecy. He'd told him how Harry will need to die one day and that he must not become very powerful for Dumbledore to mould into his sacrificial pawn. Only not so explicitly, but Snape understood. 

And so Snape tried his hardest to forget what he'd seen that day and he succeeded. He pictured Harry as his arrogant, bully of a father and directed that hatred instead of the understanding, the sympathy he actually felt towards Harry. 

Yes, he'd known Harry was a beautiful child.   
But what he didn't, was that _Harry could not speak._

Not when he'd arrived at Hogwarts. Harry had stopped talking after his tenth birthday, something horrible had happened. No one knew what it was, what had caused it, but Snape did. He was sure of it. The Dursleys were monsters. 

So it broke Snape's heart when he'd asked Harry that question in his potions class, he'd ridiculed Harry when he'd stayed silent, with that a smile on his face. Snape thought Harry was mocking his authority. So he'd asked him more questions, all of which weren't even part of the first year syllabus, he'd mocked Harry then. Said his fame was worthless, just like his intellect. All through the insults, Harry had smiled. 

  
Only after the class had ended, and he'd heard McGonagall telling the other professors of Harry's special condition, had Snape realised that Harry's smile, had once again, been a sad one. 

So Snape had agonized over his own cruelty, over Harry's suffering, over that beautiful child and had gone back to normal the next day. He'd been less hostile towards Harry since then but he knew he couldn't attach himself for him, not when Harry must die soon, for some stupid prophecy. 

So Snape saw as those green eyes shone brightly when Harry did well in his classes, as they dulled when everyone ridiculed him for looking so weak, for not being able to talk, for being so frail. When they said he wasn't hero material. That the stories of his survival were untrue. 

He watched as Harry exceeded everyone's expectations in academics, being completely outstanding in charms and transfiguration. His non-verbal magic was amazing. He watched as Harry learned to control magic so beautifully it left him mesmerized. 

He also watched the subtle heroism Harry showed each year. Fending off a troll with a levitation charm. Recognizing and reporting Ginny Weasley's behaviour when no one else did. He watched how quick-witted Harry could be. How Harry had transfigured a block of wood into a cage for Pettigrew and told Sirius, Lupin and him to take the cage to the Ministry instead of having a brawl there. They'd been shocked of course. The logic was irrefutable. 

So he'd watched this all, never smiling towards Harry, nor encouraging him. But Harry had never done anything to call him out on it. To show how crule he was being, how they all were being towards him. 

So when, fourth year came and Harry's name was called out as a champion, when everyone thought of him as a glory-seeker, a cheater, a liar, when his loose friendships fell apart, that's when Snape realised that if he had been Harry, the suffering would've already broken him. Sent him into insanity. 

But, Harry had fought. He'd reached the third round. But he never came back alive from it.   
Snape had been there in the clearing that night. When the Hufflepuff boy Cedric Diggory had fallen out of nowhere, with the trophy as the portkey but he wasn't alone. Another small body had fallen out too. It was of a beautiful boy. It was of Harry. 

He had died. Protecting Cedric from the killing curse and in his final moments, grabbed Cedric while he grabbed the portkey. 

He'd been dead before he'd hit the ground that day. 

  
We'd gone to the graveyard, found Barty Crouch Jr. there, who had attempted to resurrect Voldemort that day, but had failed. He never got Harry's blood. His sacrifice didn't go in vain, Dumbledore had told him. 

Snape had raged internally and had finally cried the next day. It was his funeral. 

By then, everyone had understood their stupidity. Their abandonment of the hero that had once again unknowingly saved their lives and for Cedric, it was very literal. They all felt guilty, incredibly so but not as much as Snape did. 

And when one final time, Snape went to see Harry's face as a corpse, he knew he was right. 

Harry was indeed, beautiful. 

And now even more, because for the first time, his face had a smile that was happy. 

**Author's Note:**

> Needs work. But the story just wanted to be written down and I did.


End file.
